Where I can tell stories, relate experiences and pass along tips discovered while doing research on my family; through volunteer activities, including as an Online Parish Clerk; and from projects completed as a genealogical consultant.

Tuesday, 4 October 2016

Childhood Diseases

I
remember the ride in an ambulance to the Isolation Hospital in Calgary when I
was just five. I had contracted Scarlet Fever and, at that time, patients with
the disease were quarantined and hospitalized. I actually don’t remember
feeling sick although I must have been enough that it worried my mother.

The
ambulance ride was the only one I have ever had so it was quite exciting at the
time. I believe I asked if the siren could be turned on but I seem to recall
they said they were not supposed to for this kind of non-emergency trip.

The
Isolation Hospital was Calgary’s second General Hospital, the cornerstone for
which was laid in 1894. It initially had only 35 beds, a nursing school and an
operating room. Several additions were made to the structure in later years.

Childhood
diseases were something that was very common in the forties and fifties. Almost
all my school-mates got measles, mumps and other assorted other illnesses. They
were just part of kids developing their immune systems. I’m sure some children
got seriously sick but I do not recall any that I knew suffering badly.
Curiously I got chicken pox from a nurse in the hospital, so I went home with
some other malady than what I had been admitted for.

In
my genealogical investigations I have come across many deaths of children in
the 18th and 19th centuries from diseases that we might
have called normal. The differences in mortality were likely as much to do with
lack of medical help and unhygienic conditions as the diseases themselves. But
such maladies were indeed serious and epidemics often cut a wide swath through
communities, especially attacking the young.

What
great progress was made with the development of vaccines and other medical treatments.
Diseases like measles that we used to be unafraid of have virtually been
eradicated although it appears to be making a comeback in places due to the
inattention of some parents toward inoculations. The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention in the US reports that “In the decade before 1963 when a vaccine
became available, nearly all children got measles by the time they were 15
years of age. It is estimated 3 to 4 million people in the United States were
infected each year. Also each year an estimated 400 to 500 people died, 48,000
were hospitalized, and 4,000 suffered encephalitis (swelling of the brain) from
measles.”

Diseases,
childhood or otherwise, are part of the history of families. Genealogists will
come across all manner of infections in their search for information about
their ancestors. Some instances will be of mild sicknesses; others might
involve plagues that spread across the old world.

Scarlet
Fever is a bacterial infection caused by group A Streptococcus. Symptoms are
sore throat and fever, accompanied by chills, vomiting and abdominal pain, and
a red rash. It is treated with antibiotics. Long-term health
problems, especially if left untreated, included Rheumatic fever, kidney
disease, ear infections, skin infections, throat abscesses, Pneumonia and
arthritis.

My
own experience with Scarlet Fever remains part of my childhood memories, not
because I remember feeling very ill but mostly because of the fun and special
care I had in the hospital. It was one of the first very big events in my life.
Curiously I found out from my father’s military records which I obtained a
couple of years ago, that he also had Scarlet Fever just a few years before I
was born.

Part
of my memories was of the trolley cars that passed in front of the hospital on
a regular basis. The year that I was sick was also the time when the old
electric streetcars were being taken out of service. I think that many of them
that trundled along outside the hospital were actually on their way to the
Ogden yards where they were eventually scrapped.

Wayne
Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling
four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number
of articles about various aspects of genealogy in several family history
society journals. He has also served as an editor of two such publications.
Wayne provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.

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Miller-Watson Family Ca 1886

The photo in the background of this website is of the Miller-Watson Family, taken in Manhattan, Kansas, USA, around 1886. My great-grandfather, Isaac Mayfield Miller, is in the back row, second from the right. My 2nd great-grandmother, Hannah Tunstal (Mayfield) Miller-Watson, is seated front-centre. The other individuals are all of Hannah's other children from both of her marriages.

About Me

Wayne has pursued family history research for a number of decades, on
his own behalf and for others. He volunteers as an Online Parish Clerk,
handling four parishes in Devon, England. Wayne has also been active with a number of family history societies and is the past editor of two family history society journals. He is also an author of several articles
published in a number of different genealogical journals and has made
presentations at genealogical conferences. Following a long and successful
career as a geologist in the oil & gas industry, Wayne now pursues
genealogy as a hobby and a second line of work through his business, Family
History Facilitated.

Wayne is a native Calgarian and a descendant of many immigrants to
southern Alberta who originated in England, Scotland, Germany, the United
States and possibly other areas not yet determined. He actively explores many
family branches spread across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and
Europe.